December 19, 2010

Playing in the Mud by Loreis

I flew across the lands yesterday, searching and surveying for a strange farm-like building in the wilderness. My dragon continuously dove and weaved, avoiding a myriad of other adventurers, also looking for a strange, farm-like building in the wilderness. Actually, there were TWO farm-like buildings, but we'll just focus on the one for now. The Immortal and Legend channels were packed with requests for locations of these mysterious "farms", and shouts of congratulations to those lucky people who found one or both. The one most sought was a pig pen. Yes, a pig pen. Meandering through this pen was a boy, and if you found him, and he was in the mood, you were suddenly transported back to the City of Medieiva, with a brand new jug of bright green liquid in your inventory. Now this is no ordinary jug: this jug contains a magical liquid that refreshes and increases your stamina when you drink. Oh yes, this is quite an amazing jug. People wait all year for the opportunity to find this pig pen, play in the mud, and receive their jug. Ninja proudly proclaimed that he had just become the proud owner of no less than 10 jugs, and you could see his grin from Medievia to Trellor.

On holidays, when the Gods place these holosections all over the wilderness, unless you are a Champion Hero, with a free mount, you have to pay for a dragon to fly. Having a Draconian Charm donation item comes in VERY handy on holidays, because it does not cost nearly as much gold to call, oh let's see, six dragons to fly you all over the place, surveying like crazy. With a Draconian Charm, you also fly very, very quickly, so if, like me, you do not have a trigger for landing when you survey "farm-like", you have to be quick. Or, if you're me, you see it, land 10 rooms away, then have to remember from whence you came, so you can backtrack, trying like crazy to find the farm. It took awhile, but finally, I saw it. I landed and ran like the wind into the entrance. Where I promptly stepped in a deep, dark puddle of mud. I hopped through the pig pen, shaking my foot, and crashed into the boy. I looked at him curiously, and BAM, back in Medievia, jug number two in hand. Yippee!

The Hero autoquest was fantastic, only because it was complicated, needed you to use your brain and you didn't have to kill anything. In fact, slaying things was discouraged. There was a little village high above the Level 31 tree house, filled with shops and various homes. Your task? Help a young lady fix Thanksgiving dinner. She needed a turkey leg, a bowl of cranberries and a pumpkin pie. Sounds simple, right? Well, each person you found wanted to trade their item for another item located elsewhere in the village. And each item brought you one step closer to your objective. Our chef with the broken oven wanted the turkey leg first, so off I went, finding a hunter who wanted a sack of flour, a man who wanted a painting, and the woman with the turkey leg required a golden hairbrush. It went on like this for a very long time. Heroes bumped into one another leaving and entering homes and stores, grabbing a wooden spoon or a quill, then running like mad back into what they prayed was the next home, hoping to buy the item they needed. Some Heroes actually posted on the bulletin board that they would help others through the quest, some requiring gold in exchange for their assistance, and some offering help for free. I have to say, the free help was more in the holiday spirit, but you have to admire the capitalist ideal. I finished the quest, receiving a Hero token, a medal and a coin stamped with a turkey, and the thanks of a harried woman with a broken oven.

All in all, another fabulous holiday! Thank you to all the Gods, especially the Autoquest department, for giving us another great Thanksgiving. Congratulations to everyone who staggered through the corn maze, sloshed their way through the pig pen and completed one or both holiday Autoquests. It was a great day, especially for those for whom this was their first jug! Christmas is right around the corner, and if you have never experienced Christmas in Medievia, you are going to have a wonderful time!